Agreeing to Create Bad Games, What the Hell Is ‘Titanfall’? Chapter 51: Me! So Smart!

Lu Bian was stunned.

The mont he saw Little Nezha walk into the office, he knew—this was bad news.

Little Nezha was basically a "Young Phoenix"—clueless about ga developnt, and pretty much just went along with whatever Gu Sheng said.

Sotis she’d even co up with so random, off-the-wall ideas out of the blue.

And this ti, Gu Sheng had turned into the "Sleeping Dragon," like he was under so kind of spell—talking about making a horror ga right from the get-go.

Lu Bian couldn’t help but sigh deeply in his heart.

Great, now the geniuses were really in full swing.

With the company’s top two big shots going off the rails, there was no stopping Golden Wind’s self-destructive rampage.

Soon, everyone gathered, and the project eting started.

But honestly, it was less of a "eting" and more of a private chat between Gu Sheng and Little Nezha.

After all, the rest of them were just sitting there, each lost in their own thoughts—

Lu Bian was thinking, Well, this is definitely going to crash and burn. Should I volunteer to be the project lead? That way, if the project tanks, it’s my reputation on the line, not Lao Gu’s—he just got that Supernova award, after all.

Da Jiang was thinking, Since it’s confird we’re doing a horror ga, how can I make it shine in terms of concept art and modeling? Even if the gaplay sucks, at least let’s make sure it doesn’t look like total sht.*

As for Chu Qingzhou, she was thinking about how to liaise with YiYou Platform, maybe put so pressure on Yan Sheng to boost promotion for this ga—there was no way they could waste that eighty grand.

Everyone had their own worries, frowning and scribbling in their notebooks.

anwhile, Little Nezha and Gu Sheng were chatting up a storm!

Gu Sheng was thinking, Sure, Little Nezha doesn’t know much about ga developnt, but at least she understands gas—she knows what players want.

The success of Vampire Survivors was proof enough.

Little Nezha’s seemingly wild ideas had actually nailed key points, which ultimately led him to choose Vampire Survivors as the project.

So this ti, he planned to do the sa.

And Little Nezha? She was completely unrestrained, fully embracing the idea that the project was bound to flop—throwing out the wildest ideas she could think of.

Her goal was simple: take an already niche concept and absolutely wreck it, going for a full-blown disaster.

“...Hmm, shrinking the map—that’s actually a pretty good suggestion.”

Gu Sheng jotted down the idea from Little Nezha in his notebook:

“Anything else?”

“Let think...”

Little Nezha propped her chin in her hand, deep in thought.

At this point, she’d pretty much dumped all the garbage ideas she could think of onto Gu Sheng.

Since most hit gas had weapons, she suggested scrapping weapons entirely, just to ss with players.

Since popular gas usually had long playthroughs, she suggested shortening the ga’s length, to ruin player experience.

Since hit gas often had huge maps, she suggested shrinking the map, to kill exploration.

Basically, she’d gone down the list of horror ga strengths and wiped them all out.

For a mont, Little Nezha was stumped. She glanced around the eting room.

Then—ding! A lightbulb went off in her head!

“Oh, right! What if... we make it multiplayer?”

Shen Miaomiao silently cheered inside—

! So smart!

You have to understand!

Most horror gas, in pursuit of atmosphere, were designed as single-player experiences!

Throughout the entire ga, you’d be lucky to even see an NPC, let alone a teammate!

It was all about creating that sense of isolation and helplessness, maximizing the player’s fear in a creepy environnt.

In fact, that’s the very essence of a horror ga!

One person in a horror ga is terrifying. Two, three, or even four people? What’s there to be scared of anymore?!

Shen Miaomiao felt like she’d leveled up.

From knowing absolutely nothing about gas to now, actually seeing the core behind the surface—she’d just nailed a critical point!

Bravo, well done!

Gu Sheng was also taken aback by her suggestion.

Multiplayer?

Wait a sec—why hadn’t I thought of multiplayer before?!

“Hmm—”

Gu Sheng frowned, looking at the notes of Little Nezha’s suggestions, deep in thought.

No weapons, small map, short playthrough, multiplayer, and a max emotion value of fifty thousand points.

It was all coming together.

He picked up his pen and wrote the ga title in his notebook—

Phasmophobia.

Perfect!

Thanks to Comrade Little Nezha’s relentless input, Gu Sheng’s ssy thoughts had finally snapped into focus!

Right then and there, he locked in the idea for this multiplayer co-op horror mystery ga, the one that had once dominated the Steam bestseller charts, even beating out Cyberpunk 2077 and other big titles.

Tsk tsk, looks like I really need to talk to Little Nezha more often in the future.

Gu Sheng gave a slight nod.

His ga library was just too massive—finding the right project wasn’t easy. He really needed Little Nezha’s help!

Every word was pure gold!

Gu Sheng wrote down the ga title, feeling very satisfied.

Then he looked up at Shen Miaomiao. “Alright, got it. Any other ideas or suggestions?”

Shen Miaomiao felt like her brain was fried—she was out of crazy ideas.

She shook her head. “That’s it. Just do it however you see fit.”

After all, the frawork was set. No matter what Gu Sheng did, it probably wouldn’t make much of a splash.

With the frawork finalized, it was ti to talk money.

Based on Gu Sheng’s rough calculations, developing Phasmophobia for the haptic pod platform would conservatively cost around 500,000 to 800,000 yuan.

“Plus the platform access fee for the haptic pod...”

Gu Sheng casually wrote down a round figure—1,000,000:

“About a million yuan in total.”

Haptic pods were expensive.

Of course, beyond that, Gu Sheng also wanted to polish the ga a bit more.

Everyone knew the original Phasmophobia had been made on a low budget, so the visuals weren’t exactly high-quality.

Characters were stiff, ghost textures were rough, and the physics and ragdoll systems weren’t great.

Sure, the gaplay made up for it, but still, the ga had its flaws.

But now, with Gu Sheng personally leading the project, and with Little Nezha’s full support, he definitely wanted to make it more polished.

In fact, beyond the original ga content, Gu Sheng even wanted to add so Chinese horror elents.

Paper dolls, paper horses, joss paper, haunted schools, old mansions, asylums—

Give the players a little taste of Golden Wind’s signature psychological terror, sothing straight out of the underworld.

Spooky.

So, Gu Sheng factored all that in—miscellaneous ideas and all—and figured it’d easily hit around a million or so, not counting the haptic pod access fee.

Of course!

That was just his own estimate.

After saying all this, Gu Sheng didn’t rush to wrap things up. Instead, he turned smoothly to Little Nezha.

Your turn. Go ahead.

And sure enough, Little Nezha didn’t disappoint. She waved her little hand and declared, “How is that enough for a haptic pod ga? Two million!”

Ah—so satisfying.

Gu Sheng let out a breath of relief.

Ever since he joined Golden Wind, he felt like every project needed at least two or three tis the budget, or it just didn’t feel right.

Alright then.

Gu Sheng nodded.

With a ga like Cat Mario, boosting the budget was tricky, since the visuals and complexity were limited.

But for Phasmophobia, spending money was easy!

Just improving the cloth simulation alone would eat up a ton of funds!

The core gaplay was already solid—adding budget just ant adding better visuals, and better visuals ant more fear factor!

Thinking this, Gu Sheng spread his hands—

This ga wasn’t super scary to begin with, but if the boss insisted on boosting the budget, well...

The level of terror?

That wasn’t sothing he could control anymore.